Why are high IQ people more liberal?

One of the psychometric mysteries is why high IQ people tend to be liberal, even though a lot of liberal ideas are clearly nonsense. Eminent scientist and intelligence blogger Bruce Charlton has proposed that many high IQ people are clever sillies, meaning they use abstract novel problem solving to solve problems that are better solved with common sense, and as a consequence, come up with ideas like liberalism that seem silly to many people.

I think there are four main reasons why intelligent people tend to be liberal (or tend not to be conservative):

1) High IQ people are less criminal. It’s long been accepted that criminals score about 10 points lower than non-criminals, even when reared in the same home. I think the negative correlation between IQ and conservatism (and thus positive correlation between IQ and liberalism) is largely just an extension of the negative correlation between IQ and crime. I’m not saying that conservatives are criminal, but they often are more criminal than liberals. For example, conservatives are more likely to support war, and war involves killing people (a criminal type behavior). Rich conservatives also don’t feel they should pay their “fair share” in taxes which is arguably theft (another criminal type behavior). Just the act of getting rich sometimes involves behavior that some people would consider borderline criminal; hence the saying “behind every great fortune lies a great crime”, and thus the conservative worship of wealth (which I’m more guilty of than anyone, even though I’m not a conservative or a liberal) is to some extent a worship of crime (though intelligent crime). As to why IQ is negatively related to crime, I elaborated on the causal mechanism in one of my earliest blog posts. So just as an IQ 90 might look at an IQ 115 as a “clever silly” for paying for an expensive sweater when he could have just shop-lifted it, an IQ 115 might look at an IQ 130 as a “clever silly” for voting for politicians that promise to raise his taxes.

2) A second major reason why intelligent people tend to be liberal (related a bit to the first reason), is that conservatism is the default position. As Charlton once wrote on this blog “conservatism is natural and spontaneous”. I agree with this; conservatism is natural because conservatism is all about our most primitive self-serving impulses: tribalism, family and children, greed etc. Evolution has predisposed us to feel emotions that enhance our genetic fitness, and these are the conservative emotions, so conservatives are disgusted by immigration because it threatens their gene pool. They worship wealth because historically, the ability to acquire resources enhanced the survival of one’s self, one’s family, and one’s tribe. They are disgusted by feminism because feminist daughters threaten their genetic fitness by being too focused on career to give them grand-kids. Similarly, they are disgusted by gays because openly gay sons also don’t give them any grand-kids. So evolution has programmed us to feel conservative emotions, and thus only people who are intelligent enough to think critically about their evolutionary programming and rebel against it, tend to have the option of being liberal.

3) A third major reason why intelligent people tend to be liberal is that intelligence is the mental ability to adapt and liberalism is all about change. By contrast, those who are not intelligent enough to adapt to a changing society or just new ideas, may fear it, and thus prefer conservatism which seeks to preserve tradition.

4) A final reason why intelligent people tend to be liberal is that liberalism is more complex and ambiguous. By contrast conservatism seeks simple solutions and simple dichotomies like good vs evil, us vs. them. However just because liberalism is more intellectually demanding than conservatism does not make it more correct. I find a lot of smart people really are “clever sillies” in that they embrace theories and ideas that are unnecessarily complex and this is probably a major problem in the IQ 120-140 range that so many of our elites are drawn from. Such people are smart enough to think of complex answers to questions, but they’re not smart enough to understand why the complex solution is wrong. They suffer from bounded cognition, because they haven’t internalized Occam’s razor.

However I suspect clever silliness completely vanishes at extremely high IQ levels. The only person I’ve ever known with a genuine IQ above 180 (one in 30 million level), embraced simple elegant explanations of the world, and communicated with great clarity, succinctness and precision, not the pretentious long-windedness of the clever sillies. I never did ask him if he was a liberal or a conservative. We had far more important issues to discuss.

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As a liberal ‘clever silly’ I vote for a party that will raise my taxes because I’m smart enough to work out a way to reduce them … Should I need to … But independent of that point I firmly believe that one role of government is to look after those less well able to look after themselves … Which might mean low IQ but might not … and by paying more taxes I relieve myself of the responsibility of looking after those less well able to look after themselves than I can. So it’s not clever silly … But rather a pragmatic choice … Nothing comes for free and taxes are a form of insurance.

I’ll ignore patronising comments about Occams Razor …. and sweeping generalisations for those in the mid bracket if 120-140 IQ range … Perhaps the author would prefer the country to be run by those in the 60-80 IQ bracket … In which case we might vote for Trump and follow those white males without degrees and an education to speak of (on average).

Change, which I agree with the author is a strong trait of liberalism … It is exciting for those who understand how change can lead to a better life and a trait of those who can adapt to change … which would likely refer to those with an education coupled with an above average IQ ….

… But it doesn’t take a genius to work out that despite the highest GDP spent on healthcare across world nations … The US has more people die unnecessarily from those unable to afford the healthcare insurance than anywhere else in the world. Reason of course is because of inflated costs of drugs, doctor salaries and administration costs…

Occams Razor would surely suggest a simpler system … But the conservatives resist change … So I’m guessing the conservative is all right jack and really doesn’t give a dam about anyone outside of their tribe …

Why are high IQ people more liberal? See I’m an conservative and my first problem with this article is where is the proof? Who are the high IQ people they are referring? Not one name was given as an example. To me this is the lie. They write this stuff and then all of an sudden people believe this lie. One among many. I know many liberals and none of them to me seem to be with high IQ but just the opposite. First, you have Hollywood, they only memorize sentences which someone else told them to say. Intelligent with high IQ, not. Second, you have college professors and students, they have an unrealistic view and many things they don’t understand but they think they know it all. I’m familiar with that group as well, high IQ, no. Many only know their field of study after that they are stupid as dirt. If you can find an well balanced individual with an wide range of studies, with no mental disorders and who can think logically they will be conservative not liberal. Liberalism gives us creepy, self arrogant, narrow minded, only good at one thing kind of people and these are the ones we need to weed out and they never need to be in control of anything but themselves because that’s the only thing they can do just take care of themselves. Regards.

-http://nikitas3.com/8716/liberals-commit-gun-crime-conservatives-little/
Liberals commit more crime, so point one is invalid
-Point 2 seems valid
-Liberalism is about change but there are bad changes and good ones and it takes an intelligent person to decide which is which.
-Lots of liberals generalize the world by saying rich vs poor or educated vs uneducated. But not all of them.
All in all, I would say the only point that was correct/valid was point 2. Also all of the points reeked of liberal bias.

Maybe this is the Dunning–Kruger effect in play. Consider that approximately 6% of scientists are conservative this would appear to indicate that they view everything with a more liberal slant. Then factor in that the Liberals believe themselves to be more intelligent, therefore they are right and anyone who has a dissenting opinion is wrong and hence less intelligent. So all assessments made in relation to the IQ’s of Liberals V Conservatives are automatically questionable because they are viewed from left of the spectrum therefore from a biased point of view.

More people with higher IQ.s are admitted to universities than those with lower scores. As 90% of college professors are liberals, those with higher IQ’s absorb the reigning ideologies on campus. If there were an even representation of political points of view in college faculty, graduates would be found to be as often conservative as liberal. Needless to say, the fact that no one can articulate this simple
argument shows how few have any real brain at all. Furthermore, those who stay home in the “fly-over states” so disdained by East and West Coast loudmouths are far less alienated than their snobbish cousins and are able to take advantage of cultural benefits such as family, community and church. Pseudo-intellectuals, deprived of traditional cultural norms, must incessantly suppress their anxieties by internalizing the various sophisms that make up the liberal creed. Meanwhile the powerful media conglomerates of the Coasts never rest from their efforts to disparage conventional values, as has been made entirely clear by the minute-by-minute assault on the President of the United States. An article about “Why High IQ People Are Usually More Liberal” is a perfect example of what’s wrong with the media. Put under the microscope Liberalism will be perceived as nothing but a particularly pernicious form of mental retardation. [PS: Harvard Grads: Read Twice. You’ll Get It]

Liberals have a vice grip on institutions of higher learning. Therefore, more people who go to colleges and universities often come out more liberal. It’s not so much that “smart people” embrace liberalism because they are “smart” but because they know how to regurgitate the party line!

If a person is smart, but doesn’t want to submit themselves to the brain washing of colleges and universities, because they do have religious convictions, then of course they are not as likely to have as high of a score as those who have!

Just because a person might be intelligent or has gone through a higher education, does NOT mean they have any better common sense! Heck, in this day and age you really don’t need to be that “intelligent” to make it through college! Some people who have gone through college often see themselves as more intelligent than the masses and are often the most prejudiced people on Earth!

Prisons are filled with Democrats. Anecdotally, of the thieves I’ve known, they all came from millionaire families whose parents were fairly liberal, as were they. Additionally, rich or poor, every liberal I know whether they doctor, dentist, lawyer, professor, kr businessperson, receives a check from the government. It’s a band of these with their hands in the collection plate. I don’t mind helping the poor, but it’s always a cover for the elites to raid the coffers.